Tayari Jones has written for McSweeney’s, the New York Times, and The Believer. Her first novel, Leaving Atlanta, received best of the year nods from the Washington Post, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Creative Loafing. And The Untelling won the Lillian C. Smith Award from the Southern Regional Council and was a Target Breakout Book. Jones holds degrees from Spelman College, Arizona State University, and the University of Iowa. She is on the MFA faculty at Rutgers and is a 2011-12 Bunting Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.